York, Pa.'s Martin Library honored Emanuel A. Cassimatis for library and community involvement at a recent ceremony. The event also served as a fundraiser for the library's endowment fund, used to purchased new books. (See list of past honorees and Cassimatis' favorite books below.) The Cassimatises: 'Builders and Heroes,' Part I and William Penn Senior High School Hall of Fame honors a host of York County achievers and York's Martin Library asks community: What to do with those old doors?.
Retired York County Judge Emanuel A. Cassimatis was meeting with the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of the International Tribunal of Children's Rights. It was the Friday following the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.
During introductions, the president express his sympathy to Cassimatis, as a U.S. representative, for the tragedy.
"You know," he told the group, "we are all bound by a universal consciousness so that when something happens to one of us, it affects all of us."
Cassimatis told that story in receiving an award from Martin Library. This member of York's pioneering Greek family then summarized its meaning and what it says about community involvement... .
"I would suggest that it is this natural sense of communion we have with one another," he said, "that leads us to share our social capital with our fellow citizens."
The retired judge is now on a list of involved community workers recognized by the library. That list, which follows, is a who's who of community achievers in the past 15 years:
Jennifer PaupMay M. Hart
William H. Kain
Helen Klinedinst
C. William Dize
Elaine Kirschner Laucks
R. Clair Frank
William A. Falkler
Dorrie Leader
Lavere Senft
Zoe Meisenhelder
George D. Stough
Lynne Pfafflin Danyo
Frances E. Keller
It was appropriate that the judge's name is now on the list. Some of those feting him told about his avid interest in books.
His favorites:
"Truman," David McCullough
"The Illiad," Homer"American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic," Joseph J. Ellis.
"The Greek Passon," Nikos Kazantzakis
"An Unquiet Mind," Kay Redfield Jamison
"The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order," Samuel P. Huntingdon
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